ERO CRAS

It’s Christmass Eve, and here at the Vicarage we’re all excited about the coming of Christ tomorrow (and Santa Paws tonight).

But first, back on 17th December, we promised we’d tell you what was so neat about the way the O Antiphons are arranged.  Well, those clever Mediaeval bods who put them together clearly had a great deal of prophetic foresight about the arrival of the Blog genre, because they wanted you to get to Christmass Eve and then read the seven titles backwards.  If you do, you get this:

Emmanuel

Rex

Oriens

Clavis

Radix

Adonaï

Sapientia

 

The seven first letters spell out two Latin words: Ero Cras, which mean: “I am coming tomorrow.”

Alleluya!  Come, Lord, come!

O Emmanuel

Today’s Antiphon, the last, sums up all six that have gone before it, and the whole meaning of the festival to come: the Christ Child truly is Emmanuel, God with us. 

In the person of Jesus Christ, God is with us always and everywhere.  Now we look forward to his coming at Christmass.

O Emmanuel,

our King and Lawgiver,

the one whom the peoples await,

and their Saviour:

Come to save us,

O Lord our God.

O Rex Gentium

Today is the penultimate day of the O Antiphons, and the turn of Rex Gentium, King of the Nations.  As the days have progressed, the Antiphons have been moving through salvation history.  We have seen how the coming of Christ is rooted in Hebrew scripture and tradition, but is good news for all people in all times.

Today is the most explicit of the Antiphons: Christ is for everybody.  Following the prophet Haggai, we proclaim Christ as the Desire of Nations.  He is able to break down the barriers between people of different ethnicities and backgrounds, and make us one.

O King of the nations,

and their desire,

Cornerstone who makes both one:

Come, and save humanity,

whom you formed from clay.

O Oriens

It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent.  Today we light our candle on the Advent Wreath for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and remember how she became a tabernacle for the Lord when she said “yes” to God’s plan at the Annunciation. The celebration of Advent IV is generally considered to  be a good thing in the Vicar’s books, but today she’s a little peeved, because it means that her favourite O Antiphon gets somewhat overshadowed. Today is the day we greet Christ as Oriens, the Morning Star.  Right at the end of the Hebrew Bible, God declares through the prophet Malachi that “the Sun of Justice” will arise. Christ is the Sun of Justice,  who will arise with healing in his wings; he is the bright Morning Star which never sets, shedding light on all creation.

 O Morning Star,

Splendour of Light everlasting,

and the Sun of Justice:

Come, and enlighten

those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.